People with sensory disorders and various learning disabilities, including but not limited to, Autism and Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder (“ADHD”), may become easily distracted, unable to focus, and hyper-sensitive to sensory input. Sensory disorders can affect people in a variety of ways, including increased sensitivity to touch, sight, movement, sound, or smell. For example, a person with a sensory disorder may over-respond to the sensation of physical contact, light, or sound or find other sensory input uncomfortable. Alternatively, a person with a sensory disorder may under respond to sensory input or have no response at all, even to extreme sensory input, such as very hot or cold temperatures, loud sounds, or bright lights. People with sensory disorders may also have difficulty processing messages, or may have impaired muscles, joints, or motor skills. As a result, people with sensory disorders may have difficulty completing classroom activities and other learning and educational based tasks.
For example, people with sensory disorders may have difficulty sitting and focusing for extended periods of time in a traditional classroom learning environment. In a traditional learning environment, people may be over exposed to a variety of sensory input, such as light, sound, smell, or touch. Further, traditional learning environments may under expose people to a particular type of sensory input, such as sound or light, which may be beneficial to the learning process if increased and controlled.
Because people with sensory and learning disabilities may require multiple forms of sensory stimulation to maintain focus, traditional learning environments, often inhibit rather than promote learning. Educators may introduce individual tools, such as radios, exercise equipment, or textured fabric, to aid in the educational process. Unfortunately, such tools are not integrated into an efficient and convenient system. Because such traditional tools are not interconnected, it is not practical or efficient for an educator to implement multiple sensory tools simultaneously or at specific timed intervals.
For example, people with sensory disorders may have mobility difficulties or require physical stimulation simultaneously with auditory and or visual stimulation in order to effectively learn. As such, individual tools that are not interconnected are not always practical, and their usefulness decreases if they are not used simultaneously or in association with other forms of sensory stimulation. Further, because people with sensory disorders are often educated in traditional learning environments with multiple students and few educators, providing customized sensory input simultaneously to multiple students is not practical or efficient.
To that end, it would be advantageous to provide a stowable sensory learning assembly configured to provide a multi-sensory stimulation work space that can be efficiently stowed when not in use and efficiently deployed when needed. It would also be advantageous to provide a stowable sensory learning assembly that interconnects with and controls multiple sensory input tools and devices simultaneously. It is to such stowable sensory learning assembly and to methods for using thereof that exemplary embodiments of the inventive concepts disclosed and claimed herein are directed.